Just a Reflection

Life can tend to blend together a bit with days blending into weeks and weeks blending into months. We face daily challenges as individuals, just as our partners face challenges of their own. When the day turns on me and the hits keep coming, I tend to notice my partner's faults more and they become glaring to me. It’s definitely noticeable, and dare I say a tad annoying at times. The day before the look of love and admiration has now slowly turned to judgement.

In the shower the next morning, lost in deep thought about ‘his’ issue. I slowly began to realize this issue is my own. I see it playing out in my own life. This challenge actually belongs to me.

He is just a reflection of me.

Wow, what a tough pill to swallow. Judging him when it’s been my issue this entire time. Or maybe we are both struggling with something and through each other find our truth.

Either way, I feel closer to him than ever before, more in love and more grateful for our partnership, our commitment and so open to seeing how fallible I am. How much more I have yet to grow and learn and change. How grateful I am to see my reflection, to start this process of surrendering, letting go, for me and for him.

Continuing to always grow together again when things seem like we may be growing apart. Simply a new perspective maybe, but it keeps me falling in love with my husband over and over again. 

Life is good.

Battling my Perfectionism with Movement

I’ve been thinking about these two words all week. I just hit a new growth period in my life and fighting with my perfectionism is an understatement. This isn’t any old fight, this is an all-out battle. While I know I’m still not coming to the absolute end of this very long battle, I do know that my perfectionism is painfully obvious to me now every day. So why can’t I finally let this go? What am I holding on to? Is it possible to still hold my life together if I’m not doing it under some strange guise of being perfect? I don’t know. I’m not pretending to know.

I do know this - movement helps.

“We see in order to move; we move in order to see.” 
― William Gibson

Movement has been my go-to.

I can’t find the perfect outfit, I find one good enough and go.

I can’t write the perfect article, I post it anyway and begin a new piece.

I can’t find the perfect words for my husband, I just kiss him and walk away.

I start to dwell on something I said or did to someone that may have been the wrong thing to say or do, I forgive myself and I breath and I move on.

Movement has been the key to get me unstuck from this pattern of perfectionism. It doesn’t mean I don’t care. It just means that sometimes you’re willing to settle for a B in place of being nice to yourself. Not always, but sometimes. What I didn’t expect from all this movement is this jolt of creativity it’s provided me. It’s made me a bit less critical, a bit more flexible. More movement, more permission, more space to be me. The true me. It feels good. Some would even say I now have better flow!

Paralyzed

Picture by Pexels

We all know the feeling. We should do something, but we can’t. We literally cannot. The fear builds, and the stress compounds. And now we are even further away from our deepest desires. It happens to us all. We get stuck. We get blocked.

The real question is how can we get unblocked? How can we blow up the brick wall that’s sitting right in our soul? Stuck in our heart, stuck in our gut, stuck in our chakras, stuck in our mind, stuck in our patterns and behaviors that now play out on a daily basis in our communication, in our thoughts, in our idea of ourselves.

If this is plaguing you, the answer is simple. Do nothing. That’s what I said. Literally, do nothing.

The tricky part of being blocked is that it stops energy. There is no movement. To get unstuck, you need to move, you need to process. In order to process, you need to absorb, and in order to absorb, you need time to sit down and do nothing.

It seems counter-intuitive but it works.

Can’t figure out how to stop? This is a gift to you. So figure it out: meditate for 20 mins a day, nap, walk and think, take a hot bath, talk on the phone to one of your soulful friends. Stop, do nothing. In this nothingness, you will process the events that got you stuck in the first place. You will be back in movement. You will get unstuck.

The fast pace of today provides so many distractions, and it takes your power away, slowly draining it. Get it back. Don’t let it hinder you from being who you are and getting what you want from your life.

Moms — you can do this. Do this while breastfeeding, do this while the baby is taking a nap, do this before you go to bed at night, while the kids are in school, while you’re in a parking lot. Figure it out. Don’t make excuses. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to yourself to process the day. In this one day, you were a caretaker, a protector, a lover, a homemaker, a worker, an employee, a friend, a leader, an organizer, a maker of magic, a chef, a woman, a queen. It’s amazing, but it’s a lot. All at once. So process it.

Once things are back in movement, half the battle is over already. You’ll get some needed relief. You’ll start living your life in a slightly more authentic way. Things will begin to align toward who you really are and what you really want. Magic happens when you move the energy and start to live in truth and not in fear.

I hope you can give this gift to yourself.