Rolling with the waves... and the punches, lol!

Many nights when I fall asleep, I can hear the waves from the distant ocean rolling and crashing. It’s a beautiful sound, both comforting and powerful… and waking up to the smell of the ocean in the air, is like life greeting you with the best of intentions.

It always pulls me into the “present” in the most vivid of manners. I started thinking about just how much has shifted in my life over the past five months or so, and standing where I am now and looking back… the distance between then and now feels vast, even though the timeline is not that dramatic.

I don’t know if any of you can relate, but my views and feelings on certain things have changed so dramatically over the last little while… especially when it comes to clearing out anything and anyone who brings toxicity into my space. Pretty much like the tide shaping the shoreline, we’re constantly given the chance to reshape who we are and how our lives unfold. Every single morning, we get to start over, in some small or meaningful way.

There’s this quote I read many years ago… one that stuck with me even back then, but now it seems to echo more loudly in my life:

“There comes a time in your life, when you walk away from all the drama and people who create it. You surround yourself with people who make you laugh. Forget the bad and focus on the good. Love the people who treat you right, pray for the ones who do not. Life is too short to be anything but happy. Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living.” - José N. Harris

I always leaned more toward the positive in life… that’s nothing new, but these days, it has become a little bit more than a mindset... it’s a boundary! A non negotiable one. I walk away from anything that doesn’t sit well with my spirit. I say no to what weighs me down or pulls me into a version of myself I no longer want to be. It’s not about being unrealistic or pretending life is all sunshine… I’m well aware it’s not. But it’s about choosing what I carry and who I carry it with.

And the truth is, even in the thickest, most painful parts of life that knock the wind right out of you… there’s still something to be found. Something small, something good. It is not about pretending everything’s okay, but rather making the brave decision to seek out the silver lining, not because it’s the thing we’re “supposed” to do, but mostly because our hearts and minds need it. Because it’s a way of choosing a better life. A way of choosing ourselves - in our best version, or at least "on the way to getting there", lol.

Albert J. LaChance once said: We are marinating in the soup of collective madness, cruelty, selfishness, and lies, the soup of spiritual toxicity.

And I feel that, more than ever these days. But I also know we are not helpless in it. We do not have to absorb it. We don’t have to mirror it. Choosing not to let that toxicity take up residence in our lives is one of the kindest things we can do for ourselves.

This shift in thinking has filtered into so many parts of my everyday life. It’s softened me where I needed softening and strengthened me where I needed backbone.

We ALL carry so much: Anxiety, frustration, unspoken depression, trauma (the list goes on) and it seeps into the way we interact with others. How many times have we let a stranger’s sharp tone or a rude comment ruin an entire day? I have started asking myself, could I just laugh this off? And more often than not, the answer is yes.

One of my son’s teachers once told me, “Pick your battles, otherwise you’ll spend your whole life fighting.” I never forgot that. And these days, I remind myself of it often.

I want to fill my life with memories that feel good, not only in "hindsight", but as they are happening! And so, I choose to surround myself with what reflects that. It's not always easy, but it IS possible (for the most part).

“The world seems to want us to be sad and angry because bad things frequently happen. But I say we should feel the opposite…” - Richelle E. Goodrich

Love that quote… and I think she’s right. There is beauty, even now. In the crazy mess of the world, in the mundane of our everyday lives, in the falling apart of what we had built up in our minds. We just have to look for it with intention, not to escape reality, but to soften its blow and to keep our minds and hearts open, even when they’ve been bruised.

So, five months into what has probably been the most difficult season of my life - And just when I thought it couldn’t get harder (I really need to stop saying that haha), it did. But I have made a decision within myself: to bend like a tree in the wind, to sway with the gale rather than stand rigid and break within it.

To see the wildness and the wonder of it all. Because when this storm passes, and it will (it always does) I know I will have a fuller life than I did before, and that is what my soul has been craving for all along!

I’m learning to adapt to a life filled with the things that matter most… the true things... and a whole lot less of the rubbish that doesn't!!!! The kind of life that’s built slowly, deeply, and honestly and that is what keeps my soul alive and moving forward. Nothing much else matters… than the small things, and this time around the arena, those are my “big things”. No exceptions - not for anybody or anything! That is my peace.

“Content spirit, Cheerful soul.” — Lailah Gifty Akita