Which makes sense because this blog is supposed to be mainly for the benefit of our clients and you the reader.
Today, its for me.
When I started training, I had a personal blog most of my clients read that was a mix of family and fitness and training...and it was taken down by blogger and I've never gotten an answer why. This blog has been a half-hearted second attempt to continue. But, losing all of that took the wind out of my already schlumping sails. So I write on much more of an intermittent basis and with not as much gusto.
Which pretty much sums up the last 4 or so years.
On my morning agenda was to look up a post by Chris McCombs (careful googling him if you are faint at heart) because he inspires me in a way few people do. A source of wind for those schlump-prone sails if you will. I relate to him in a way I relate to few people. Therefore I lean on him to inspire me instead of the usual pins on pinterest or other things that for some reason just do nothing for me. I am learning that being true has been a bit of a missing ingredient for me lately. Not because I am Untrue per say - but because I am more lost than I was.
Because grief and death brings aliveness and clarity. Initially in the wake of my Mom's early death, I had such clarity. Its an amazing blessing....the horror of losing your best friend, your soft place to fall, and the one true constant you always knew, and incidentally one of your favorite people of all time. The aftermath clears up the whole "what is important, what should my priorities be" question. It's an automatic built in North Star. I was given the gift of clarity which came for a heart of risk-taking and an attitude that life was meant to be lived, not avoided. But that fades.
Which STINKS.
This morning I read something profound that is a taste of what a mouthful of that kind of clarity is really like...
"The freedom achieved by people who grow beyond the limitations of their childhood conditioning is freedom from their own minds."... and I miss that. That was freeing.
Truthfully, I've been somewhat lost by comparison. Processing all the hard work and all the disappointments along with the successes of my last half-decade have created a new set of expectations for me. Im still doing great work, with great people, for the right reasons, but compared to 7 years ago something is missing that I haven't been able to identify and therefore rectify.
Its hard to be true when you are lost, even if just by comparison.
Its because I have a new kind of conditioning, but not the kind of north star no question compass that I had before with a death of a mother and birth of a baby... I was centered and lucky to be so. What I've been conditioned to think in the last 5 years is that no matter how hard I work, the reward will be helping others change their lives and for me, more stress, more disappointments and more responsibility. So I push forward with this kind of brace for impact kind of energy wanting to do the best I can but pretty scarred and weary from the stress.
But today in reading that post by McCombs - he referenced a book I mentioned before called Radical Honesty. In that reading, Im getting the point that stress does not come from the environment, it comes from the mind of the individual under stress. And in my mind under a cloud of stress, I have become more lost than I am comfortable with. Which in and of itself brings a kind of clearing of the clouds and a hint of clarity is returning. Telling the truth, and facing it is scary. But in order to have some say in creating life, we must be willing to tell the truth. And that is what I am missing.
Owning a business I feel I can't tell the truth, that if its not palatable it will hurt business and so many depend on me, I don't want to "let people down" because my job is to be so strong that I can hold them (and all of their friends) and this business and my family up.
7 years ago when I started The Rev, I was most certainly not lost. I was very firm in my beliefs, very clear about what I wanted to do and how to do it. Sadly, I've allowed the experiences of the let downs of business ownership mixed with a little regret that I've given so much to it while sometimes so little to my family and most certainly neglecting myself put me on a numb kind of autopilot at times. I am sorting through that. While I continue to pour myself into others and a what I believe is a great cause and calling, I am not the same. And today it hit me and inspired me to write this.
So right now, Im committing to truth.
Thats all I got,
Anna
