Have you ever felt the overwhelming feeling of gratitude for your life … and … yet somewhere in the back of your mind you feel a nudge, a pull, a stark contrast of disconnection to the gratitude that makes you close your eyes and wince if you let it any further into your thoughts? 

For many years, I felt this. Trying to make my life fit rather than actually feel like I belonged to and in my own life. It felt like the good days and the bad days flowed with such precision, it was like a river cutting its path through the limestone.

When I first began to think about what I wanted to offer clients both on the individual and organizational level, I kept coming to, I just want people to feel like they belong! That they belong in and to their own lives, that they belong in and to an organizational they help run or lead, that folks can show up exactly who they are and be fully seen, heard, and validated.  

These are just a small number of the questions I continue to ask myself as someone who has found themselves in the wellness / self help / coaching space. I often struggle with how to show up in this space because I both know how helpful it can be and also how not so helpful it can be.

I wrote this in my journal several years ago. I don’t even think I knew at that time what I meant by writing it, belonging to my own life, what does that event mean? I do remember feeling like my life at that time wasn’t mine, it didn’t fit, everything felt off, stifling, like I was on a path but did not know where the fuck I was going. I couldn’t get off of it, but I desperately knew I needed to.

I still struggle to embody this message myself, but it is such an important one for me to say out loud sometimes. This does not mean I can do it all on my own or that I have it ALL together. I still need help, support, love, understanding, feedback, care, compassion, listening. It just means that no one single person holds all the answers to my own life.

Cooking, for me, has always been a deep dive down the perfectionism rabbit hole. My mind goes a million miles per second. I overheat almost immediately, my stress level goes through the roof, and an emotional wave of immediate failure and that voice saying “you know this isn’t going to turn out right, why are you even trying?” I mean I know, it’s just cooking right, why the emotional turmoil?

I found this sentence in an old journal of mine from a few years ago. It was during a time where I was struggling to make sense of my life. The best way I can describe it is, I would look at myself in the mirror and not recognize the face staring back at me. I was loved, I was grateful for my life, but things just did not feel right, and deep down I knew it. Avoidance and numbing were my go to's. If I could just ignore those feelings, drowned out the thoughts that something was amiss, life would just course correct and everything would make sense.

Communication can be the key to so much. Communication from a place of fear can cause breakdowns, misunderstanding, judgement, mistrust. Communication from a place of openness can provide empathy, understanding, care, supportive moments of vulnerability.

I feel like I need to have it all together to show up in this space. That is the real and honest truth. I feel like I cannot post the truth because it isn’t motivational, it isn’t inspirational, it isn’t supportive or business-forward. When I feel overwhelmed and tired and anxious and lost, I want to hide. I do not want to be seen. Posting on social media is literally the last thing I want to do because it feels raw and vulnerable and I feel exposed. I do not want people to see that some days hurt and are hard, that I don’t have anything inspiring to say or to share.

Several years ago, I went through what I can only describe as a burnout and a breakdown. Both personally and professionally I was lost. I did not know which direction to look or to move and became frozen in my fear and my anxiety and my depression. I felt like I did not have a plan or a purpose and was just floating through my life

Have you ever felt the overwhelming feeling of gratitude for your life … and … yet somewhere in the back of your mind you feel a nudge, a pull, a stark contrast of disconnection to the gratitude that makes you close your eyes and wince if you let it any further into your though

I am not sure even what to say or how to put words together or even if I can put words together if they will make any sense, but I think I am going to try and see what comes of it.

For these last few weeks, I have been paralyzed with fear - with anxiety - with anger – with frustration. with the unknown - with the unreachable.

In working with clients, forgiveness is often a topic that rises to the surface of our conversations and often in the context of forgiving ourselves. Forgiveness ... forgiving others or our ourselves is a very intimate and personal journey, and one that often does not come easily. Forgiving myself was over a decade in the making, it was not easy and for a long time I held on to a lot because I felt like it was my necessary punishment for mistakes in the past to hold on to the guilt and shame. This practice of putting my words of forgiveness on to paper and sharing them was a cathartic and necessary one for me to let go of the guilt and shame and allow in joy and belonging.

In 2017 I spent nearly 6 months sober. Quietly and without telling anyone, I stopped drinking at the end of January that year. This was after years of small breaks – 1 week here, 2 weeks there, even a 30-day Dry January challenge the year prior. At all points, I found myself pulled back into the delicious first sips of red wine and the giddy jolt of that first taste of a very cold beer. As 2017 started coming to an end and I found myself drinking again, I knew I wanted to make a serious change. A change to my life’s direction, my daily patterns, my coping mechanisms. That is when I decided I would give myself one-year, 365 days to see what would come of my life if I chose not to include alcohol in it.

Have you ever wanted to try something, but were afraid to? Have you ever had a dream that one day you would do something, but fear held you back? Did you ever say to yourself, "one day I will give that a shot," but one day never actually seemed to come? For me, my life was lived by these questions. Hesitation, fear, doubt often limited my vision of my future and my abilities. It felt like as soon as an idea would pop in my head, all those roadblocks flooded my brain until the idea was run out of town, never to be heard from again.