Connecting. Trying. Showing up for change.

As far back as I can remember, I didn’t like myself. Well, that’s not true. I liked myself. I thought I was funny. And creative. And kind. I knew I was loyal. And real. I also knew I was sensitive. That’s what I didn’t like. Or didn’t feel comfortable with. I thought that was a bad thing. Others also contributed to that bend of my thinking. Now I understand my gift better, this sensitivity. I see its blessing. I see how it draws people to me. I also see how it continues to challenge me. but I do look at it as a gift. And as the root of my purpose.

What I forever get stuck on is that people don’t see me. They see themselves. They see a part of themselves in me. A part they want to grow. A way they want to feel by taking a little something from me or benefiting from my light and effort by being around me, but not actually being participatory in relationship with me. But it doesn’t really work like that. You have to do the work.

Today, I stand in a space of seeing myself, valuing myself. Knowing myself. I still need to be seen. But I won’t fight for that anymore. I merely move on from that pedestrian fight when you show your true self to be closed to mine.

I have worked hard and earnestly to develop my sense of self…exploring my values, living accordingly, and not only welcoming my purpose, but honing its ability to help others. I see myself for who I was meant to be and for whom I can fully realize. I feel truly content and blessed to be me. If you don’t see me now, that’s really a bummer for you. I wish you growth and happiness that comes from your continued development. And I’m here if you ever look at me differently.

So here I am growing, changing, and still working toward my time of personal connection. I hate that I’ve become accustomed to being lonely. I want time together. Connection. REAL, life-purposed connection. We are meant for it. It’s why we’re alive. Connection in all its synonyms—love, compassion, acceptance, time—IS the meaning of life. I exist because of you. You exist because of me. Without one another, we have nothing. I just won’t settle for less than I deserve. It has taken me 30 years to get here. Hell, it’s taken my 50 years. I have so much but still I crave that personal relationship. MY friendship. The one I don’t have to compete for. The one with another human who is doing the work. The one that is the container for my abundance and my neediness. I’ve been good at creating spaces that hold space for such. And I hold my heart always open to living compassionately with eyes wide open for my friend.

I have built two environments for connection. One is a community space disguised as a personal training studio. It’s a place for people who are wanting to feel better about themselves to come and connect into an energy that is greater than theirs alone. Yes, weight loss happens and muscles swell. But the goal is to grow the human. Develop the person. Nurture the soul. Feed the mind. When you change your thinking and then change your actions based on that thinking, then you change your life. Simple enough. Except that is a lifetime of work. It’s daily effort. It’s also so totally worth it.

The other space is an approachable store. Everyone opens the door to a store knowing what to expect…stuff to buy. Sure, there is stuff in this store too. But the feeling is different. This store exists to give you a community space for connection. A place where you can feel totally yourself. And supported. Connected. Loved. Some come in for a unique shirt or healthy snack or a bar of soap. But others come for a meaningful conversation, a grounding meditation, a healing hug.

In life, our achievements are not cars or houses or money in the bank or titles. Our legacy is not just within our families…that we raised good kids, etc. Our achievements in our life are about connection. Love. Compassion. Acceptance. Time. To family, with family…but also to Family, aka community…others. Friendship is perhaps the most sacred of relationships. This sensitive girl wants so badly for everyone to come into this space of loving-kindness. Not just to receive. But to give. I want for you. I want for me, still, too. Yet all good relationships start with self.

In the space of real connection with others, is a shared pulse. A shared breath. A knowing rooted in action. Can you sense it? Do you know of what I speak? If I speak your language and you’re wanting change, let’s do this!

In my younger years, I struggled with understanding people’s bad behavior towards others. It was the drama of middle school and high school. As a highly sensitive person, I felt the bad vibes. Even when they weren’t meant for me. I hurt for my friends when they were hurting. I felt the pain of strangers when I witnessed their struggle. It was a lot. It was confusing. I drank and did drugs to take the edge off those heavy feelings. I thought there was something wrong with me. I didn’t know they weren’t all my feelings, not all my struggle. I didn’t have the skill to discern otherwise. Today, I understand mine better. Mine separate from yours. I have explored my boundaries to appreciate their hard edges, then worked even harder to blur those edges. I want not to separate me from you, you from me. Again, we are meant for each other. But less-than behavior needs boundaries. Yet awareness spotlights that not everyone acting poorly are acting with malice. Rather, when we know better, we tend to do better. So judging behavior is really the act of acknowledging where someone is in their own personal development. And with the underpinning of awareness, we soften judging into seeing. To accepting.

Certainly, none of us need to stand still in the face of being treated badly. Hear me espouse that we must always act to protect our safety.

I wish I could say that as I live more openly, more curiously, with more awareness and in more flow of nature’s pulse and path that I have less struggle. I don’t. Challenge exists everywhere. Such is life. We were promised nothing different. It is what it is. I have worked to understand and to discern. For the past 30 years, since recognizing that to stop killing myself with addiction, to stop stop feeling, I would need to work to feel, to make effort to understand, to show up curious of myself and of others daily. There’s no running from the effort.

Who am I? Why do I think the way I think? Why did I drink? What were the drugs for? How was smoking serving me? Why do I eat that? What do I want? What is my purpose? And deeper I went…who are the man and woman who are my parents? Who are my siblings? What formed my family dynamic? What kinds of people are drawn to me? Who am I drawn to? Why?

With self-awareness, true exploration—with ongoing effort—the answers appear. And the best parts of living, the really good stuff, starts to flood in. This dig-in-ness. This deep exploration. It IS living. In the words of Socrates, “The unexamined life is not worth living,” I keep showing up. Efforting for connection. Efforting for changing. Trying. Action. Especially the action when no one else is looking.

People stand in front of me every day saying “I want to lose weight,” “I want to eat better,” or “I want to feel more confident.” Our needs are great, aren’t they?! These desires are real. And they’re the “easy” ones we’ve societally accepted as they way to ask for help. But behind every one of these desires is the real one. The deep one. The one that shows the vulnerability of our humanness, our true selves. Behind “I want to lose weight” is “I want to feel better about myself.” Behind “I want to eat better” is “I want to feel better about myself.” Behind “I want to feel more confident” is “I want to feel better about myself.”

It’s wonderful to be in the place of this deeper sense of desire. We take care of what we value. So the work is in exploring who we are. Why we are. And our path to feeling better.

I continue on my path of connection. Of exploring my ever-enriched self. Of continuing to be my own best friend. Of meeting my best friend. Of reciprocal friendship in which I’m not asking to be seen, but am seen. Of not working to be heard, but am listened to and appreciated. A friendship that is a container for my awesomeness and for my weaknesses equally. I’m open daily to it. I’m doing the work. And I’m here to help you do yours.

This girl here is, yes, a health coach and personal trainer. But did you also know that my experience and toolbox allow us, together, to dig into emotional curiosity, meditation, mindful-based stress reduction, personal development, and more? We can focus on lifting weights and changing nutrition too. But the more smoothly paved route to physical changes is on the path of the spiritual and psychological work. Again, we take care of what we value. So let’s do it. Let’s put it all together. give me a shout if you’re standing on the cusp of wanting different. Because to want different is to do different. I’m your coach. If you’re ready to show up for change, I’m standing here in front of you with curiosity and the purpose of helping.

Saying it aloud; letting it go...

(Just so you know…I did not proofread this. I sat and typed stream of consciousness and hit publish. Judge that. Appreciate that. Do you. Today, I honored me by going with this flow and saying fuck it to a need to review and edit and craft and hone, etc. Let it go was the intent…so here goes…)

Oh boy. Here they come again. All the feelings that are tied to central narratives of my life. Today, I’m feeling overwhelmed, sad, impotent, undervalued, unseen, slow, lonely. All the things. I understand these feelings about myself, within myself. Now. Finally. They’re not new. They are a part of my fabric. And I’ve learned to sit with them when they arise. Today is one of those days.

It gives me great strength to expose these vulnerabilities. When I name them and claim them, I disarm them from being your weapons. So…boom, defenses down…I’m overwhelmed, sad, impotent, undervalued, unseen, slow, lonely.

And I am intent, joyful, powerful, vital, present, attune, connected.

So much of my angst is actually not tied to me. It’s tied to my optimism and hope for US. For you. For all.

Overwhelmed. I’m a coach. I work with 40 clients, 5 team members, 1 intern, a space-sharing colleague. I’m married. I have two businesses. Aging parents and a widowed mother-in-law. My brother almost died this past year. I’m concerned for the health of my dearest loved ones. I’m back in school getting my Master’s in clinical nutrition. I’m studying Zen Buddhism. I shop for quality products for my store, pay my business and household bills, keep the laundry going, and ensure the fooding buying and meal prepping march on. This could be your list too. But you have your own. Insert your own list here…

Part of being overwhelmed is that I care. I work to be intentional, to have intent. I hold space for my clients and work folks, family, and my hubby. I want everyone…I mean Everyone…to explore their fullest health and wellness, to step into the awareness of what frees them from unhappiness. I love being a student. And a teacher. I love helping and I work daily to be strong enough to ask for help for myself. We live full lives. That which leads to these feelings of overwhelm show me just how fully is my life. It’s brimming. Overflowing, really. We take care of what we value. I value these people, these opportunities, these tasks and roles. I am grateful for that which can feel overwhelming to me. My life is rich.

Sad and impotent. We’re wasting time. We’re tearing each other apart. Labeling. Critiquing. Castigating one another for differences. Quashing curiosity. Replacing it with judgment. This is sad-making shit. This is soooo not what our amazing minds and hearts can do. We’re leaving our best players of love and compassion on the bench too often. That causes me profound sadness. Perhaps we don’t know how to coach those players on the field so we don’t try. I get sad when I witness people not trying. To change is to know and then to grow from knowing. So perhaps there is unknowing at play. Perhaps it’s too soon to have keyed into the tune playing from the loudspeakers of our existence. We NEED one another. Our existence is predicated on our belonging to one another. And we take care of what we value. I’m sad when we don’t demonstrate our dependent co-arising, our all-in-this togetherness. You flail too. What underpins your sadness and powerlessness?

For me, part of being sad is that I see our wholeness. In an exquisitely beautiful life-altering awakening in July 2020, I was gifted with the clearest vision for it. The joy I feel for this gift is the new breath in my lungs. I want to nothing personally anymore. It has been replaced with a mother’s love. My heart breaks when yours is breaking. I want to protect when you’re scared. I so clearly see your perfect totality and I want to nurture you into the growth progression toward it. But that is out of my control and it causes me sadness. SO MUCH joy to see all of you, but much sadness that I can only hold space, hold myself accountable to be an example, and trust timing that is not mine. I was told that my expectations of people are too high. Talk about being seen. Thank you. But is there such a thing as too high? Completeness is joy. Intentional actions are joy. Processed feelings are joy. Direct communication is joy. Real love, real support, real co-living is joy. Are my expectations high? Too high? I see the totality. So yes. But beautifully so. You know when you’re doing a jigsaw puzzle and you grab the box lid to help you figure out a particularly difficult section. Where does this piece go? What piece am I looking for? What exactly is the final image of all these pieces. I see the puzzle lid now. So, yes, I am impotent in doing for anyone. All I can remind us all is that joy is everywhere, every moment. Your work is yours to do. Mine, mine. But, boy, is it fun when we openly share the workshop called living authentically together.

Undervalued and unseen. I have a problem. I don’t like promoting myself. See, I am special. I mean, really, I’m amazing. If I let my ego get involved then I’d really ramp up the thesaurus search to try to describe my qualities. But my kind of special is quiet. It writes these blogs and social media posts not because I need you to think or feel a certain way about me but because I bust out at the seems with burgeoning surges of not fulfilling my calling, my purpose. Gathering information is not helpful. Knowing is not helpful. Potential is not helpful. Helping is. Doing is. Action IS the magic. Have you explored your value, your valueS? Do you see yourself?

There is so much noise out there. On the Internet. On apps. Social media. All the forms of connection guised as…connection. And I don’t want to add to it. After a certain amount of time of not speaking, suddenly I need to shout. And you get a post like this. A breadcrumb to the perspective way-finding of my path of daily efforts actions. But then you don’t see regularly. You don’t value what’s here. And you buy from Amazon. You pay for “health coaching” apps. You allow your neighbor to make supplement suggestions. You get your nutrition in a mass-marketed food-sales plan. I totally understand. I do. In fact, I honor and celebrate that you’re finding your way and taking action and having success and changing and growing. My ego sits there telling me I wasn’t enough for you. So I sit with my power and the vitalness of my existence, my skill set, my gifts. My heart smiles in true appreciation when someone says that my studio is the best gym and fitness experience they have ever had. My purpose is solidified when a visitor to the store says that this place feels so amazing. Those are the beacons for me. The reminder to focus on what is and not what isn’t. I value me. I see me. That is enough. And those who also sometimes value and see are frosting. Not the (gluten-free, dairy-free) cake. I am the cake in my own life.

Slow. This is a feeling a battle constantly. When I began to practice awareness in my daily life, across all of my actions, I had a HUGE loss. Productivity. I only get some much done. Honestly, I only WANT to get so much done. I’m conditioned to feel like my efforts aren’t enough and I find myself regularly still feeding that rote expectation by saying things like “I know I can do more.” But…I do not want to. Really. More is not where the magic happens. And so frequently more is just more. Not quality. Not assistive. Just a distraction from practicing awareness. I get a handful of things done daily. And my mastery of my to-do list is not where my satisfaction or success of the day lies. Instead, my focus is quality, is intention. Learning to allow your fires to remain your fires even when you throw them in my lap is self-care. Boundaries are self-care. Breaking the norm of what composes a day is self-care. Constantly feel like you’re spinning? What is the pace of your day?

I do not thrive on fast. And neither do you. Fast weight loss. Fast communication turnaround. Fast decision making. Fast reactions. Fast consumption. Impulse and emotion led me down paths of being overweight; physically sick; actively addicted to alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes; depressed; anxious; interpersonally closed off; lacking sense of self; and wanting. I’m going to take slow. By choice. Deliberately. Even when doing so leads to a loss of something that would have been nice. What is meant for me comes at my pace, attuned to MY environment. I monitor the impact of my environment on me AND choose to regulate my energy to not bleed unnecessarily into my environment. Flow comes from slow…slower at the very least.

Lonely. I wish I had my friends back. I wish my friends could have been a friend to me when I needed them. Sometimes, despite knowing I turned myself inside out in trying to continue relationships, I wish I could push aside my boundary of self-care and knock on the door again. But there’s no back. I’ve been molded into new growth, a new shape for the place I am in now by those relationships. There is little worse than being hurt. The threads of our narrative woven by hurt are strong fibers, solid knots that tie us to questions of our safety and belonging. I used to wonder why love wasn’t enough. I had friends but was lonely. I had relationship but lacked companionship. I had laughs but no ladder from the depths of struggle. How often are you lonely?

One of the greatest gifts that has come out of my personal and spiritual development work has been building an understanding of connection, of Relationship. We need one another and long for belonging. Yet we see the vulnerability it takes to weave our threads in a shared fabric with others as having to be all sad feelings all the time or focused on struggle-y stuff. I don’t know who the hell invented this modern idea of vulnerability as being bad. So I’m just going to go ahead and say what our God intends for us to know and what is written on every atom of our being…vulnerability is the language of love. Despite fighting vulnerability, it’s already there. Deny it for the rest of your life and miss the true glory of your life. Or begin to see this: in vested relationships, those where we have feelings involved, we MUST practice curiosity as the entry to shedding our armor of self-protection to expose our vulnerability. When your significant other, mother, friend, or coach brings a thought to you, be open. This is a gift. This is another human being who cares enough to come to you to share a thought. This person cares. This is an expression of love.

Yes, let’s be clear, abuse is abuse. Emotional manipulation, gaslighting, physical harm, and so many more real, horrific traumas of weaponized behavior are not love. Someone coming to you and saying, “I see this in you and I feel this way about it is hard for me, help me…” is a gift. It WILL feel at first like confrontation. Remember when you’ve been told to hold your breath and count to 10? Maybe still breathe, but wait. Express curiosity. This person has come to me. Taken their time to come to me. Made effort to come to me. There is value being expressed here. Intent. Love. Connection. This person wants to help me change and grow. This person wants to change and grow. Together. So we are BOTH stronger. My God, love is magic.

Learning to embrace our interconnectedness and relishing that joy staves off my lonely for those closer relationships. And I make effort to continue to build space for community of real connected growth. I am immensely grateful for that.

My friend Kim shared some readings this week with me. I share them with you here…if you’re still here after this longgg post. I encourage you to read the following not once, but at least twice. Three times is the charm! Perhaps commit to the effort before proceeding. And, thank you. Thank you for reading to this point and giving enchanted meaning to my fingers typing all these words as I spill out all these feelings of being human today. It feels so freeing to let them go. To exhale them through sharing. To dispel their power by bringing them to the light. Living is amazing. Sharing the journey is the purpose.

From Kim:

Buddhism teaches that joy and happiness arise from letting go. Please sit down and take an inventory of your life. There are things you’ve been hanging on to that really are not useful and deprive you of your freedom. Find the courage to let them go.  — Thich Nhat Hanh 

Whether we like it or not, change comes, and the greater the resistance, the greater the pain. Buddhism perceives the beauty of change, for life is like music in this: if any note or phrase is held for longer than its appointed time, the melody is lost. Thus Buddhism may be summed up in two phrases: “Let go!” and “Walk on!” Drop the craving for self, for permanence, for particular circumstances, and go straight ahead with the movement of life.  — Alan Watts

The art of living… is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive. — Alan Watts