Who I Should and Shouldn't Be

There's a girl woman in my life that I've been comparing myself to lately/again.  There's a lot of things that go into the backstory of why, but in essence I think it's because she's maybe what I hoped I'd be at this point in my life.  And I'm not.

She's feminine and soft and emotional and compassionate.  She drinks tea and does yoga and goes on meditation retreats and gardens.  She's folksy meets bohemian meets hipster.  She writes poetry and reads books about natural health and foods.  She loves to cook and she teaches and she has this personality that just screams, "Let me nurture you!"

She was ready, at a whole year younger than I am now, to get married and have her first child.

And I've been struggling with these comparisons.  Because I'm not sure I'm any of those things, but I think I should be.  I think, for some reason -- even though I know better -- that as a woman, those are the things I should be.

Instead, I'm not overly feminine, I'm rough around the edges, I struggle to allow myself to actually feel my emotions, and I worry that this well of compassion I used to see in myself has somehow been exhausted.  I hate tea because it has no flavor.  I can't bring myself to rest or quiet enough to practice yoga or to meditate.  And I've been trying to think of ways to kill my garden lately because of all the zucchini.  I don't know what my style is, I can't write poetry to save my life anymore, and I read romance novels instead of books on alternative health.  I think making an egg salad sandwich is a totally legit form of "cooking," and I'm not sure I have the patience or empathy to be nurturing.

But I recognize two things here: 1) None of these things are forever.  They can always be changed.  I can be whoever I want to be.  And 2) I've been concentrating so much on the ways that I find myself lacking lately, and this too is something I have the power to change.

They talk about self-love a lot over at Stratejoy, and one of big things mentioned is that self-love is a practice.  It's not something you decide to do one day and, BOOM!, all of sudden you wanna spend all day kissing yourself.  Self-love is something you work at.  It's the daily mantra reminding yourself that, "You are Enough."  It's the time taken out of a busy schedule to sit somewhere quiet and breathe.  It's the run through the woods in the early morning, or the bubble bath at the end of a long day.  It's the journal entry that helps to clear the mind, or the piece of chocolate before bed.  It's growing in the knowledge that being and loving yourself is the first step toward authentically showing up in your life.

See?  I know all these things.  I'm not a dumb person.  But the practice of it is so much easier said than done.  Still, I'm going to give it a go.  I'm going to try my hand at the things I've wanted to do but have never really given a fair shot, even though I beat myself up for not doing it them -- vicious, vicious cycle.  Things like yoga, and maybe meditation.  Natural health.  Allowing myself to feel my emotions as they come, rather than keeping them in to "deal" with them later.  Being vulnerable (one of the values I identified while working through the Joy Equation).  Trying to find the joy in cooking, because I know it must be in there somewhere.

And I'm going to try to tell myself that, regardless of whether those things become habits, who I am is okay.  I'm going to try to tell myself that the only person I should be is whoever I feel like being at a particular moment. 

I'm really going to try to stop comparing myself to others.


[Photo source: http://imgfave.com/view/732546]

A Look Back on Intentions

I've been thinking a lot lately about how far I've come in the past year or so.  I've decided to re-start Stratejoy's Joy Juice journal prompts from the beginning and, one of the first questions I'm journaling about asks me to examine the ways in which I'm spending my time.  I already know that the answer to this question is so telling -- how we choose/agree to spend our time says so much about our intentions in our lives and our commitments.  Do we choose to work 24/7, perhaps because we intend to have a very comfortable lifestyle that requires wealth and privilege?  Do we choose to surround ourselves with the great outdoors, maybe because we intend to live as organically and in-tune with the natural world as we can?  There are so many variations of these answers, each as revealing as the next.

A year ago, I was drowning.  I was drowning in my own lack of self-worth, my need for approval, my fear of disappointing the people I cared about.  I was desperate for something, anything, that would get me out of the situation I found myself in and, though I knew it, I was too afraid to act on the fact that all I needed was some courage.  I was spending my time doing something that made a toxic mess of my days.  I was zoning out on TV whenever I could just so I could sit and stare off into space and not have to actively participate in my own life.  I was pulling away from people, going inward, and wondering how I got there in the first place.

When I go back to those first Joy Juice prompts from a year ago, my intention was clear: I intended to suffer through every hour as the responsible, stable, dutiful girlfriend/daughter/sister/employee rather than step up and take charge of my life.

This is one of the reasons I love Stratejoy so much.  Because at the near-lowest I thought I could go, this positive corner of the internet helped me to realize that I wasn't alone, that this wasn't a new feeling, that other young women were experiencing exactly what I was experiencing, and they were making changes.  I realized that it was possible to change without my family, my relationship, my reputation, the world falling apart all around me.

Fast-forward to today.  I can barely think of a single toxic thing in my life right now.  True, I don't have a job, but my days are filled with so much, and that so much is so right, that I find it hard to complain sometimes.  I've found a passion I didn't know I had, made wonderful new friends when I thought I had no idea how to even make friends, and I'm exploring creativity in ways I've always wanted to.  I'm concentrating on my health -- all aspects of it -- and I'm giving attention to Nate and the community we've built together.  What's even better is seeing how my choices have changed, how the primary questions I ask myself now when faced with difficult decisions (like whether or not to apply for a job or take an unpaid internship or invest my time and energy into something) aren't, "How will this look?  What will so-and-so think of me?" but rather, "Is this right for me?  Is this who I am or want to be?  Will this make me happy?"

My intention in this new year was to live a fearlessly authentic life, and I think I'm living up to that well so far.

But I think there's an even greater lesson I've learned from this year of change and reacquainting myself with authenticity, and that's to accept where I've been.  I was ashamed for a long time about the person I was and the choices I made in the past few years.  I thought it showed how weak or flighty or foolish or stubborn (yes, I realize flighty and stubborn are somewhat contradictory) I was.  But I'm just not sure I think that anymore.  Without those moments, those choices, would I have ever gotten to where I am now?  Would I be moving in the right direction today if I hadn't gotten so turned around back then?  Who can really say?

Isn't it just better to acknowledge -- and maybe even celebrate -- the path that lead you to where you are?  Who are we to question the universe?


[Photo source: quote from http://www.tut.com/resources/notes/]

A Theme for 2012

For the past few weeks, I've been working on coming up with a theme for 2012.   After a lot of stops and starts, I think I've finally settled on one I love and one that I think pretty much speaks to everything I want my new year to be (or that I want to be in this new year):

Fearless and Authentic.  Fearlessly Authentic.  Fearlessness and Authenticity.  Has a nice ring to it, huh?  I think so.  So what does this mean for me?  Let's take this apart a little bit:

Fearless: When I say I want to be fearless in 2012, I'm actually being very literal and very serious.  I've often felt like, in the past four years (yes, FOUR YEARS), I've made a lot of my decisions based on fear whether I've realized it or not.  I have a deep fear of being financially insecure, and that fear served as a pretty deep root in my desire to go to law school.  I was also afraid of what others would think if I dropped out of law school.  Would my parents be disappointed?  Would people think I just couldn't hack it?  So I kept going.  For a long time now, I've been afraid of the unknown too.  How is my life going to turn out?  Screw that, how is my choice of what to have for dinner going to turn out?!  I'd like to do xyz, but what if that's the wrong choice?  What if I'm wasting time?  What if it doesn't pan out?  What if, what if, what if, fear, fear, fear.

You get the picture, right?

So this is the year I'm dedicating to being fearless.  To taking the plunge.  To "giving it a try" and going where the road leads me (in some respects).  And this is not just a grand gesture sort of thing either.  I'm finding it very useful in the day-to-day of my job hunt too, or in just how I relate to others -- I'm putting myself out there more.  Or, trying to at least.  This is a work in progress.

Authentic: This ties pretty closely to my goal to be fearless in 2012, but it has more of a focus on also being true to what I want and who I am.  It tempers the fearlessness a little bit (because it'll stop me from packing up my shit and moving to Vegas, which is fearless but totally not me), and at the same time it pushes me forward too (because although I may be really afraid to do xyz, if it's something that hits that spark of "Yes, that's Kahea!" inside me, than it's something truly worth pursuing, you know?).  And my desire to practice more authenticity also stems from the realization I've been coming to this past year, that I make a lot of my decisions based on what others think or say, or the way I feel I'm going to be judged or perceived, or what I consider to be smart, safe, secure choices.

These aren't necessarily bad things, but I just know I wasn't always like that.  I was never careless, but I listened to myself more.  I was more authentic.  And I know that I used to be happier.  Ergo, perhaps if I find the way back to being more Me, I'll find that same well of happiness and breathlessness for life that I used to feel.

Really, when you boil it down, 2012 is the year I'm dedicating to finding my way back to Me.  And I think that's a pretty noble goal.

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I'm currently working to figure out The Mystery of the Disappearing Comment Link.  Until then, if you'd like to comment on this post, just click on the post title.  It'll take you to the posts' individual page and you can comment at the bottom.

Planning a Great Year and Some Promo

Although I've never been a huge fan of New Years Eve (too much hype, rarely ever what you thought it would end up being), I have always appreciated the month of January for being a time when so many people are trying to start over, to hit that reset button, to forgive and forget all the things that went on in the last year and to gear up for the 365 days ahead of them.  It's always been a time of hopefulness, you know?

And for someone like me, that means it's a time for plotting and planning.  For envisioning all the wonderful things that could happen, for making preparations and contingency plans for the speed bumps ahead, and definitely for reevaluating priorities and setting new goals.  The thing is, though...I suck at resolutions.  Like, really suck at them.  I can't think of a single resolution I've ever made and kept.  And believe me, I make them all the time, and not just on New Years Eve.  I mean, really, does anyone keep their resolutions?  And don't resolutions just feel sort of surface-level when you think about it?  Say your resolution is to lose weight (it's been mine for the past 10 years, so why not?) -- how does that statement help you in any way?  Does it require you to lay out an action plan for losing weight?  Does it speak to your motivations and inspirations?  Does it set you up for overcoming the struggles you'll face?  Mine never did and maybe that's why I always gave up on them 2 weeks into January.

So this year I'm trying something new.  I'm going to sit down and really think through 2011 (the good, bad and ugly), and then seriously plan for 2012 -- no spur of the moment goals, no off-the-top-of-my-head hair-brained ideas.  And instead of resolutions, I'm creating a theme!  It's taking me some time, but I'm playing around with ideas like pursuing passions and exploring authenticity, all that cool stuff.  Once the theme is nailed down, I'll use it to work on a mind map and a vision board and then some action planning (with real steps and benchmarks) for the next 12 months.  I'm so excited!

I'll post all of that stuff as it develops but, to give you an idea, here's my 2011 vision board and mind map -- I actually really tried to live by the ideas on both and 2011 ended up being a serious upswing year for me.

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So kind of in keeping with all of this, most of you know that I'm a huge fan of Stratejoy, right?  I use a bunch of its products and am, actually, a sort of volunteer staff member too (and have we got some great things in store for you guys!).  Molly (the founder), her company, and all the women that participate in Stratejoy either through blogging or commenting or the groups have literally helped me in ways I can't even explain.  And just in case you're in a place in your life where you're looking for really supportive community, or you're doing some positive planning for 2012, or you just need some help connecting with yourself again, I wanted to share some of these resources:

• Creating Your Magical Year: This is what I'm currently using to help with the thinking and reviewing and mapping and planning for 2012.  I took part in the live calls in December, but with this you can listen to all those call recordings, all the interviews, get all the worksheets, and even get the extra goodies Molly sent out during those three weeks.  As an organized soul, I have loved this course.  So if you're thinking of really trying to beef up those resolutions this year, go forth and try it.
• The Joy Equation: This is what started the upward swing for me last January.  It was 30 days of absolutely turning my life around.  For those 4 weeks, you get weekly audio sessions, a workbook (that I still look at almost daily), daily journal prompts, and tons of tools to reconnect with yourself.  My favorite part is a toss up between figuring out what my values were and actually believing that it's okay for me to decide the course of my own life.  Can't say enough good things, except maybe that the price of this e-course is a "pay what you can" donation.  Seriously.
• Joy Juice: This is a years worth of journal prompts that I'm currently using as well.  The prompts are emailed to you every few days and cover a different big life topic each month (like love, money, health, authenticity, etc.).  Because I loved how The Joy Equation's prompts got me in the habit of journaling daily again, I jumped at this.  It really does help to sort of turn light switches on in your head.  Best part is that it's all on your time, you don't have to journal every day (the emails can just hang out in your inbox...mine do until I'm in need of a topic).  I use it.  I love it.

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For full disclosures sake: Again, I'm a volunteer Team Stratejoy member, as well as an Affiliate.  So, as an Affiliate, if you click on the above links -- or the links in the sidebar -- and purchase any of these Stratejoy products using those links, I receive a percentage of the purchase price.  But that doesn't mean I think this stuff is any less amazeballs.  If you were a pal you would use my links. ☺
 

I'm currently working to figure out The Mystery of the Disappearing Comment Link.  Until then, if you'd like to comment on this post, just click on the post title.  It'll take you to the posts' individual page and you can comment at the bottom.