Learning to trust

Trust...are we born just trusting people? As a small child you have to trust the adults in your life not to drop you, to feed you, to not forget to pick you up at the end of the day but as adults it's a little harder. You get jaded by life, by experiences, by feelings and you end up with trust issues.

How do you learn to trust yourself? Your own voice, when do you know it's strong enough to speak on it's own?

I want to trust myself, I really do. There are somethings I trust without question....there are other things I really have to think about. Do I trust myself to say yes? To do the things I really want to do without worry, without judgement?

Lately it seems like I am pushing my own trust boundaries. Am I growing or just learning to listen to my own voice more? If I don't think too much about something I can jump in and do it without issue.....if I have too much time to think, to second guess, to play out all the ways something will go wrong in my head I stop, I don't trust even my own self. It's like trusting that someone else wants to see you naked. Do you really drop all the outerwear and just put it out there or do you keep hiding behind clothes? When is it time to trust that the naked you should come out?

Is trust and habits the same thing? Do we do something for so long that it becomes a habit but we misunderstand it as trust? Are trust, habits and our own instincts all melded together somehow? The mysteries of our brains are something. I started really thinking about the differences between instinct, intuition, trust and habits it's all kind of a muddled puddle.

Intuition can provide us seconds to make decisions, our instincts are what we seem to have been born with and rely on to keep us safe. Did we learn them from those we trust? As we grow in life our instincts develop and in turn, become part of our habits.

We are complicated people. We may never find the answers to this but I guess it comes down to learning to trust our instincts. By doing this hopefully it will lead to habits that may help guide and protect us all of our lives.

So is it time to be naked? I just don't know.

Time flies when you are having fun?

Isn't it funny how fast time goes when we stop focusing on it...when we just keep moving and plugging away? Suddenly you look and the end is in site. I remember starting school 2 1/2 years ago thinking it was going to take FOREVER to finish and all of a sudden, last night, as I finished my last Marketing class and my last class at the current location, they are moving my school to Eden Prairie, I realized, I only have 12 weeks left.....12 weeks.


Where does the time go when we stop watching it? All of a sudden I am realizing how very fast our lives zoom by us. I am approaching another birthday, pretty quickly, and it's always a mental reminder that a year has passed....passed before I realize it's even passed. Most people use New Years Eve to make resolutions or goals for the new year, I do to but less focused. They are usually more general in nature....like this year's big one....No Rules! But a birthday is more about me...it's about time to start focusing on what I want for myself out of this next year.

What do I want? What do I need? Is this really finally my year?

The truths we tell ourselves

Isn't it funny the things we tell ourselves are "truths."

It's our own form of denial but it's safe, it's a world we know and ultimately we control. We tell ourselves we deserve this or that and we cope, we deal, we survive in our bubble of truths....but what are we really hiding from? When do we look in the mirror and like what we see?

Too often we all fall victim to living an unintended life. We are surrounded by well meaning friends, family even careers, and even though things seem right at the time, over the years the gloss and glamour somehow wares thin and we become embroiled in the endless mundane tasks of every day life. Suddenly you wake up one day wondering how you got to where you are, why are you living the way you are and really wondering why you feel like you have missed out on something bigger, something more meaningful.

All of a sudden the puzzle of your life you've been building has all these holes in it, all these missing corners and you have to find the the pieces. Are there always missing pieces? Do we ever get to see the entire picture? Do we want to?

The reality is we each need to find the missing pieces, to discover our own truths. It's hard to do. In order to do this we have to admit to ourselves our own limitations, our vulnerabilities, weaknesses and then be willing to make necessary positive life-altering changes.

Who is ready for that? Isn't it easier to live in our own pool of truth? Challenges become opportunities.....do we have time for new opportunities?

I had a conversation with some friends about living a past life. I really do believe that our souls have experienced things before. They are a part of us and are here to help us learn, teach, guide.....to just be something bigger than just us, than just this moment we are in. There is a bigger meaning/purpose behind who we are and who our life paths cross. I think we are here to learn lessons that we ignored in another lifetime and now it’s our chance to make things right, maybe even to restore our soul's good virtue?

Maybe we need to acquire greater knowledge and wisdom that our soul craves in order to move onto the next step? According to the Law of Attraction:

what is attracted to you is also given out and soon everything around you vibrates with a higher, purer resonance that creates transformation, unconditional love, unconditional forgiveness, as well as unconditional healing. And on it goes - you create the domino effect, thus raising the overall global and universal consciousness level.

So when do we begin telling ourselves the real truth? When do we decide to empower ourselves and hear what we have closed our ears to?

When do we begin to search and find the missing pieces of our own puzzle?

When do we give up?

Is there some point in time, some magical known moment that you just know it's time to give up? To give in, to stop pursing your dreams, wants, needs. Is there a moment you actually, with total clarity, know it's time to give up?

I got a bug in my head to actually paint on Saturday, I went and got all the fixin's to get started and after about 1 hour I stopped and opened a bottle of wine. I do not like painting. I like the outcome but I hate...HATE the actual process.....especially alone. Ugh!! Then yesterday I had a kind of lazy day, I couldn't seem to get motivated to finish painting (truthfully I had barely started when I gave up - again!) and with so much homework looming on the horizon I just sort of checked out for the day and opted for a day being lazy and snoozing on and off. I feel sort of guilty today about a wasted day but it is what it is. Now I must make up for it ten fold today.

Because I had such a lazy day, I had time to think...which for me isn't usually a good thing but I started thinking about my parents and my grandparents and my relatives and I wondered if they have (had) lived the life they were aiming for? Did they accomplish their goals? Their dreams? Did they enjoy where they were at in their own life and what did they give up to get to where they were? What did they want from their lives? Did they ever sit around drinking with friends talking about their hopes and dreams? Their goals? Did they love the one they were with or did they wish they were with someone else? Were they happy? Are they happy?

It was just my mom's birthday and last year at this very time we were contemplating turning off her life support and here it is one year later and she's kicking it around still as fiesty as ever. It's funny how fast life changes in one year....365 days.....it's really not that much time. I can't help but wonder, what will I be doing in one year? Had some friends over on Saturday night and it was fun trying to solve the worlds problems while sipping apple martini's. I think the sound alone of a martini being made can change the world. I like to get other people's perspectives on life too. Sometimes it helps shift our own perspectives and align things we didn't even know were out of alignment.

I think about how many things I've given up, stopped, changed directions on or decided it just wasn't worth doing anymore. How many people I've lost contact with, how my relationships have changed and all the new friends and experiences I've gotten to add to my life. At this point in my life there are some things I know for sure. I know I am never going to rule the world, I won't ever be a size 10, I won't have babies, I won't have a little house with a white picket fence and mostly I'm okay with those decisions. When do you know it's time to give up on something? Are you not suppose to? Are you suppose to keep plugging away until you're so exhausted from trying that you just give up or do you realize it before then and just switch gears?

I found this picture of my grandparents I took when I was in high school. I remember this moment as if it were yesterday. They lived in Florida and I was down there for a week, a cheap vacation, and we were going out to dinner. It was 5:00.....5:00 and we were going to dinner. I remember thinking My God...who goes to dinner at 5:00? They stood outside their house and my grandfather put his arm around my grandmother, squeezed her close and said "I love you Annie". They stood there smiling waiting for me to snap their picture, a second in time forever captured. It's this wonderful moment in time that is etched in my head for some reason. I think because they were so happy at that moment. They were content, they seemed to be happy I was there, with each other, with their life and it all seemed good. I remember that moment so clearly. I wonder if they were living their life the way they wanted.

Do we get to choose our life or does our life choose us? I am almost done with school and my life has been so consumed by school and work and homework that I don't even know how to exist without all that extra stuff taking up my days. What will I do? What will I be? Do I get to decide that or does the Universe have some grand plan?

I guess only time will tell.

Funny things....

You know I always say the Universe is a funny thing...but suddenly it really seems to be IN my head.

I don't know if it's because my birthday is approaching and even though I work hard to have fun with it, something deep inside me always cringes as it approached. Or if a full moon is on the cusp, if I'm just so overwhelmed with life and work right now that I feel I need a "under construction" sign posted ON me.....don't know but the Universe seems to really be hearing me and responding...just not sure what to do with what it's saying.

I feel discombobulated, like I just can't get a clear grip on things going on around me. Then this from the Universe today:

These are the times when hopes are dashed and chaos abounds,that golden opportunities, prized ideas, and new friends emerge into the view of all, but are only seen by the few who look.

Let's go crazy,
The Universe

This is for sure one of those times. Smart ass Universe. What lesson am I suppose to be learning from this?

I had to be in several meetings yesterday, not what I normally have to do, and at one point I found myself just staring at the group wondering how many of them were married and what their spouse was like.

What connects two people? Are they opposites that balance each other? Are they happy? Did they choose to be together or was it one of those things like OMG I don't want to be alone the rest of my life - you'll do? What connects two souls?

What is it that makes two people decide to spend their lives together? Through the good and the bad, the ups and the downs? What drives them to commit themselves to another person and do some of us not have that in us? I wondered if you asked them "what is your favorite thing about your partner?" what kind of an answer you would get.

I wonder that about myself too. If feels like the last few weeks I've been getting feedback about all the things I need to change...to fix, to adjust....why I'm not the "best me" I could be and how I need to change to fit into someone's idealistic mold of what they think I should be. I normally can ignore it and move on but for some reason, it's really stuck with me and its really beginning to wear my soul down.

I guess I need to make a list of my favorite things about myself...or is it that I'm just not looking? Hmm, so much to ponder on a Friday morning.

Endings

Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end. Everytime some old ends something new slips in to fill its space. I keep thinking about that because I'm so over whelmed with trying to finish school right now I can't imagine all the time I will have when I am done with school. I can't imagine what new things I will do when I have the time.


How long do you wait? Wait for a late friend, a family member....a lost love? I actually did something I don't do very often last night..I watched tv. Not really but it was on in the background and I saw bits and peices of American Idol. I used to be obsessed with that show, I never missed it...now I couldn't tell you anything about it except Simon is still an ass and the kids look younger than ever. David Cook was on singing some sad song about waiting for someone. It went on something like you go do what you need to and I'll be right here waiting for you to come back to me...it made me think...how long do you wait? Do you completely give up your life to wait for them to come back? What if they never do...do you still wait?

I think we all do that in a sense, we wait for our life to begin. When he/she loves me it will be fine, when I get that new promotion/job, when I lose weight.....when I finish school. Jesh. It's crazy wrong. Why do we do that to ourselves. What kind of walls have we built up around ourselves that a life of waiting for something is ok?

Another busy week but this thought was rambling around in my head and it just wouldn't wait.

End of the first quarter

Where does the time go? I remember blogging about the new year and then blogging about the NEW new year and here we are at the end of the first quarter of this year already. This year is one quarter done, gone, spent, over...finished. Wild how fast time goes.

I barely can find time to get things done in one week much less one quarter. School is pretty all consuming right now....two classes while working full time and part time and trying to squeeze any piece of a life is completely and utterly exhausting...especially at my age. My marketing class is done next week but I've really enjoyed it....and then only 3 weeks left of my on line class but that one is killing me....so much more work than an actual class class. Ugh.

I feel like life is racing by and I am running as fast as I can to keep up and let me tell you...I don't run. I feel like I am just moving moment to moment without any thought. It's really exhausting.

I started this year (twice actually!) with the concept of NO RULES and I haven't really lived up to that like I planned. I don't have time to. hee hee.....that's really kind of an oxy moron isn't it.

I know I just have to keep moving or things will fall apart...if I just keep moving I think I can keep all the balls in the air....we shall see.

I read this quote the other day, something about each day being a new chapter in our own book, what will we write today. I really liked that thought. Although I wonder if I could have a ghost writer. Is that an option? To have someone else step in for a bit and write the pages of my life?

The Universe seems to understand what's happening all the time....

The Chinese say, "The best time to plant a tree was always 20
years ago. The second best time is always today."

Funny how planting trees and taking action on the life of
your dreams are the same that way.

The Universe

No day but today.