Defeating the demons: pressing in to get your head (and heart) unstuck

 

In my recent post, “Make peace with the past…” I contemplate the choice to salvage the Someday mentality [“Someday my dreams will come true, I’ll accomplish X, Y and Z or fill-in-the-blank”]—or to let go of the one-sided dreams. You know the type—where the outcome centers on circumstances beyond your control. Today, I’m at a crossroads as I fight a few familiar demons: rehashing old habits, rethinking past choices, dwelling on the old. Yet the only way to reclaim my reality is to dig deeper, to press in to those areas which best define me: my passion and my purpose. To pursue, with greater intent, life’s simple pleasures and the transformative power of prayer, the mindful practice of gratitude and self-compassion. And to finally release those things which I cannot change in order to appreciate the life that’s smack dab in front of me. Not a million miles away. Not within the pages of a fairytale. But here, and now.

How do you defeat the demons?

Image source: askideas.com.

Waiting for the curve ball

[Image credit: digitalart]

A couple of days into my ninth month of daily blogging — almost three-quarters of the year behind us — and I’m drawing another blank.  I can’t blame it on yogi brain, or lack of material.  I simply feel like I’m in a place where I’ve worked through so many curve balls that I know I’m my own worst enemy, I need to take more chances, make smarter choices, be present Today (while still holding onto the promises of Someday), avoid making assumptions or pinky promises that cannot be kept, etc.  Perhaps it’s time I start tossing in a book review occasionally (speaking of which, The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein is a fabulous read, as well as Snowbound by Blake Crouch).  Or I suppose I only need to give it another day or two and life will toss in a different curve ball.  No doubt I’ll have something new to work through and more blogs to write.

What do you do with life’s curve balls?

All grown up … almost

[Image credit: nuchylee]

Today my “little” girl turned 20.  No longer a teenager and not yet an “official” adult, she’s that “in-between” age for the next year.  It’s as if she’s living in her own personal limbo as she plans for her grown-up future.  Such an exciting and scary time all rolled into one.  I envy her a bit.  Not that I’d want to return to 20 when I thought I knew everything but really knew very little and was afraid of my own shadow.  But I’d like an extra two dozen years for trial and error, to take chances and step out of my comfort zone — knowing I had plenty of room to right my wrongs and start all over if necessary.  Although I’m not ready to crawl under a rock any time soon, to throw caution to the wind at my age holds less appeal.  However, I wouldn’t mind knowing what I know now without aging for another 20 years.

Happy Birthday, Baby.

If you could be one age indefinitely, what would that be?

Wiping the slate clean

In the game of life, we don’t get a second chance.  We’re born with X number of allotted years and when they run out, we’re done.  No extra spins.  But while we’re making our moves and setting the course for our future — attending college or jumping right into a career, getting married, having kids, buying our dream home, playing the stock market — we’re sometimes afforded one of those rare opportunities or two for a “do over”— to spin one more time.  For me, after more than two decades since my high school graduation and working in one career, I returned to college and completed my Bachelor’s degree, and  now I’m employed in a field I’m passionate about.  And after 18 years of mediocre motherhood, I was given the chance to parent an adult child and the dynamics that come with it.  Perhaps more importantly, if we’ve been hurt or wronged someone along the way, we may be fortunate enough to collectively wipe the board game clean, put the past behind and start over.  But it requires laying it all on the line — spinning the dial to see if you lose it all, or you’re the big winner in the end.  Only you can decide if it’s worth the risk.

Is there a “do over” you’re hoping for?

Letting go … for now

[Image credit: dan]

Giving up doesn’t always mean you are weak; sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go.  ~Author Unknown

I have big expectations for 2012.  24 of them, actually.  In my post what have you got to lose?, I mentioned my desire to take deliberate chances, or risks, during the year.  Not one, but many.  For some time now, I’ve been struggling with an important decision.  Although it was by far one of the hardest I’ve had to make pertaining to moving forward with my life, it wasn’t so much the act of doing as opposed to letting go … the relinquishing of a dream until circumstances allow me to wholly live it Someday.   And since a chance is defined as a venture or gamble, luck, fate, destiny or good fortune, I’d like to think my future will shine brighter because I took a chance to let go of one desire — sacrificing  a piece of my heart in the process — while focusing on my more immediate goals.  For now.  If I didn’t believe that, I don’t know if I would have been strong enough to let go.  But it’s when we make these tough choices that we see what we’re truly made of.

Don’t worry about losing.  If it is right, it happens
The Main thing is not to hurry.
Nothing good gets away.  ~ John Steinbeck

Is there a dream you’ve relinquished, either temporarily or permanently, because it just wasn’t the right time to pursue it?