by Liz B | Jan 3, 2022 | Reflections, Self-Improvement, Spirituality, Thoughts and Reflection
Maybe I wasn’t meant to be a mother, wife, or hell even a partner. I realized I’d be happy, after all, just continuing to explore all my hobbies and live and die by my ideas and personal discoveries.
My first love in life told me I had an artist’s mind, we were maybe only about 15 or 16 when he said that. But I never forgot it. And he’s right. My imagination is actually extraordinarily entertaining and I never run out of ideas or things to do.
One thing I know for sure though is I’m pretty good at following my heart and I’ve been blessed to have a lot of unique experiences that people can easily look at me as crazy for, really shocked to find out that I did it all drug free lol but anyhow what I wanted to really say here is that if you have a different path in life than most, it really CAN be scary to follow it. It can be easier to just sweep that shit under the rug and ignore some of your deepest feelings. I’ve done it, and it surprised me that I did it. I’ve never been that type. I don’t suppress my emotions. I vent things, I address them, I’ve never run away from my emotions. Until…the fear or uncertainty associated with them was simply too much. I thought I could just ignore it til it resolved itself….until it didn’t. Sometimes it becomes easier to live a “practical” “normal” life. Everyone else around you seems to be doing it. And you have all those reinforcers around you all the time. People and their gatherings, their cozy families, their secure jobs. All seeking the same thing. But what if you have a different calling?
In all my past spiritual experiences, things people often never heard of were happening to me. I followed them because all I felt then was fascination. But once fear became involved or obstacles I didn’t have clarity on? Well that’s easy, I’ll just cover that up for now with my day-to-day goals and activities. But something kept nagging at me. Year after year after year. Nagging at me not to ignore it. Til I was like god, fine – what do you want? And realized something had to change. I had to try to conquer my fears and what other people were telling me was best.
I had common fears of ending up alone or wanting kids but then it being too late. Another fear was that I’d end up suffering alone in old age, lonely, in pain, with no resources to help me. I honestly have no idea where that fear came from (or any of these really), except maybe that that’s more or less what happened with my dad, and I saw his suffering, and naturally, it affected me greatly.
Of course, you want to live in a practical and smart way, but the cost of doing things out of fear or because “you’re supposed to” comes at the cost of living your truth and potentially paving a very unique path that will light the way for others. For me, this would be an extra big mistake because the intuition I have that calls me is so strong. I don’t know exactly what it means, but the callings always feel significant. And despite my fears, I can’t ignore them. You have to drop all expectations and be open and ready for anything. So — here’s to living your truth and facing your fears. Happy 2022!
by Liz B | Mar 10, 2017 | Entrepreneurship, Lifestyle, Spirituality
Living Life My Way
The biggest challenge in my life has been trying to figure out how to live it my way – and it’s all mostly a mental game. I’m starting to get on top of certain things, but all I’m getting on top of is understanding my weaknesses (a huge advantage because it gives perspective) and I’m starting to see others’ weaknesses as well. We all want to be somebody or feel important and most of us spend our entire lives following the herd in every single way possible.
I also think we forget how to live our life with passion – because let’s be honest life can get really damn boring always trying to live up to some expectation or do some kind of path that people tell you you’re supposed to be on.
I’ve spent YEARS just trying to figure out how to get that passion back, and it hasn’t been easy because for one there’s a lot of noise you have to sift through to really get to your core feelings. Secondly I had the realization that I wasn’t doing my due part even if mentally I was trying to figure it out – I wasn’t working hard enough or actually taking the action necessary to live up to what I knew was my potential.
It also hasn’t been easy because I’m not busy doing things other people are doing – I’m not on any regular path. I’m not changing jobs or going back to school to further challenge myself and many times I felt a sort of pressure to do that, just to relieve this feeling of “WTF am I doing?”.
But I realized that while I would benefit from those things, they’d also further distract me from that main thing I’ve been trying to do: learning how to carve out my own position in life first with the tools I have now and even believing that it’s possible – and learning from the journey of THAT.
I actually have great work ethic, I just didn’t know how or where to start, and so I’d often get stuck in the same rut of trying to strategize my future and not acting. I didn’t realize that it can’t always be about planning the course, like I’ve done the rest of my life with planning jobs, planning education, and so on. This path is primarily in the moment. It happens by paving it with action.
It’s difficult because it’s such a “murky” and unclear place to be. With the clear path school or climbing the corporate ladder gives you for example, it allows you to see the reward during it and at the end, for the most part. You may just not know how small or how big the reward will be at the end, but you see with certainty that it’s going somewhere. With this path, there will be a reward at the end too (all life experiences give rewards), but it’s really difficult or impossible at this point in time to really see where it’s leading.
There have been one million thought patterns and directions I could go in and interests I have, and it’s literally taken years to figure out that I think I finally understand how to execute and not just how to think.
I’m keeping this somewhat abstract because this feeling can apply to a lot of situations in life where we feel alone or are treading our own path despite pressure to do otherwise.
If you’re experiencing something similar or have in the past, hang in there ’cause you’re not alone, and don’t forget to work your butt off because if all else fails at least you will have really learned something.
by Liz B | Apr 21, 2016 | Lifestyle, Mental Health, Mindfulness and Meditation, Self-Improvement
I have found that many of the systems and paths that we have carved out for us in life, or that we follow, can improve our skills but may sometimes dull our creativity or even cover up things in life that we feel truly passionate about.
We may learn that following a path and acquiring achievements and recognition from doing so is the kind of happiness that we think we need. We forget what it feels like to be truly ignited by something, or we sacrifice pursuing that as we consider it less important.
However, I don’t think there’s anything more important.
Sure, we have to make a living and that requires us to make sacrifices sometimes. But, we still are in charge of getting our priorities straight and creating a life for ourselves that may be the “road less traveled by” but allows us to be our best selves and give to the world and ourselves all of our potential.
And, this kind of awareness helps us to truly appreciate life and what we are here for. It brings us out of the mud and makes us feel alive again.
Adulthood doesn’t have to be dull, systematic, and dominated only by to-dos.
There should be an undertone of joy, even amidst all the ups and downs.
Learning How to Appreciate
In thinking about what “becoming alive again” REALLY means, I realized it boils down to one primary attribute: appreciation. You have to learn to appreciate what’s in front of you. Being grateful is talked about a lot these days. However, it’s not just a matter of turning on your “grateful” switch. It’s often not simply just an intellectual process.
It’s very much an awareness that unfolds with really seeing and understanding what comes together in our lives to make us healthy and happy. In other words, it might take some work.
For example, once I tuned in enough to my body to see how good it feels when I eat food with wholesome ingredients (not processed, no added sugar), that represented a very real kind of awareness that made me appreciate healthy food that is doing good for my body.
At the bottom of all of this is us. We have to learn to get in tune with our selves and the rest will follow.
Here are seven things I thought of that can help uncover that feeling of becoming alive again (note, most of these need to be done regularly and require effort and patience. But if done, they will make a huge difference in your life.):
- Appreciate your food. Take a moment to think about where your food came from, be thankful that you have it, and chew slowly. Try to observe, and enjoy the process of eating. This took me a long time to do. But I noticed that I started naturally doing it in my times of highest awareness and clarity – like after spending time in nature.
- Observe the cause and effect of all situations in your life. Take a look at what happened to lead you where you are today. If you are happy in your current situation in all regards, that’s great. If not, observe the circumstances that took place to lead you where you are today, and where you might be able to make changes to an entirely different path that will lead you to entirely different place.
- Watch your mind. This one is the biggest one and I could write a book about it (and many have). But, your mind is the tool with which you create your perceptions and shape your life. Do not hold on to negative thoughts. We all get them, but practice letting them go. Observe and see how your perspectives might be telling you what you can or can’t do, or how life should or should not be. You don’t have to do anything here, but learn to watch.
- Experience more. Try new things. Things that might connect you with others, or show you something about yourself. It could be as small as trying a new food you were hesitant to try. Dare to go outside your comfort zone. You’re not getting anything from being in it.
- Start paying attention to gut reactions. Learn to say no. I always considered myself a pretty in-tune person, but I realized that just by habit I was often dismissing my own feelings on things. It can actually be a difficult process to differentiate between “this feels like something I should do, not that I’m excited to do,” if we’re always used to putting away our own feelings.
- Evaluate your life goals. What kind of goals are you setting, and why? What are you looking to achieve, and why? Is it something that you feel will make you more fulfilled on a deep level, or is it something that you think you should be doing to get ahead? I remember thinking years ago that I just wanted to hit a $50k income goal and that that’s all the money I would need in life ever. Now that I’ve hit that income goal and grown a little wiser, I’ve realized it is so not about the money. We all need it and more is better, but I realized that thinking in terms of money was getting in the way of me focusing on creating a life that fulfilled me, regardless of the income. It is kind of a trick; you have to reverse engineer this thinking. You have to go after what you enjoy doing the most and focus on your talents, and not worry about if it will make you enough money or not. Things will then fall into place.
- Set aside time for things in your life on a regular basis. Before bed, I made a sort of routine to light candles, turn off all electronics, read a book and drink tea. This has given me a happiness I didn’t have before. It allows my body to relax and contemplate the day. I’ve realized that constantly being distracted by electronics can create a stress response and not allow us to truly relax, even though you may not realize it at first.
