How Seasons Can Be Our Mirror
The snow is melting, the days are growing longer (thank goodness) and the freezing cold days are becoming less and less. As spring is upon us and another season’s coming to an end, I find myself reflecting on the past year and half. For me, 2018 certainly packed a punch and I’m just starting to make sense of it all.
Throughout the last year and a half, each high had a low, each push had a pull, and you can be damn sure they all came with valuable lessons. Some of these lessons were woven across many situations, some came as a very unpleasant slaps right upside the head, and some arrived as if they were a prize from the universe to reward you for enduring all of those negative emotions that life likes to dish up sometimes…ding, ding, ding you get a brand new, shiny life lesson!
Now that spring is beginning, it’s time to unpack some of those lessons and prepare to power through the rest of 2019. Here goes nothing!
Boundaries.
Boundaries are critical when creating space between yourself and another person you have a relationship with. It’s drawing a defined line in order to protect your own thoughts, emotions, and energy, while keeping yourself and the relationship healthy. After you’ve defined your boundaries, which can be a lengthy and exhausting process in itself, the next step is to clearly communicate them with loved ones, co-workers, and family members. This allows the boundaries in the relationship to be acknowledged and become established. When boundaries are crossed it creates turmoil in a relationship. This often happens when the lines aren’t clearly communicated. There’s often a sense of betrayal and overwhelm or a lack of respect for each other’s needs. It’s important to honor your own boundaries and also respect the boundaries of those you love. You can arrive at the understanding that space can be essential and beautiful for the life line of a relationship.
Listen to every aspect of your mind, body, and soul.
Trust your intuition. I’m sure this isn’t entirely new to everyone, but the most important relationship you have is the one with yourself. Stay connected with yourself. Life is busy and hard and distracting. Check in with yourself and do this often. Meditate, do yoga, get outside, exercise, participate in activities that fill your cup and allow yourself to decompress. Then be sure to listen to what your mind, body and soul are telling you. The majority of the time if we make a conscious effort to create space for self-awareness the information we receive from our mind, body and soul will be 100% accurate.
Self-sacrifice for what you believe in, but not to the point you lose yourself.
As humans we seek pleasure. If you are receiving pleasure and fulfillment through a job, relationship, friendship, a cause, a recreational activity and you believe in it, by all means self-sacrifice. Put other things in your life aside for this particular area of your life that brings you pleasure. My caveat here is everything in moderation. Be mindful of how much of your time, heart and energy you are dedicating to this one area, and be sure not to neglect the other areas of your life that need attention as well. Being passionate, believing in something and loving hard is sexy, but so is balance too.
Experience loss with respect toward yourself, you deserve it.
Loss is a huge jerk. It hits hard and it’s usually accompanied with all of the most pain in the ass emotions that are out there; shame, guilt, fear, sadness, blame, grief. I’ve experienced loss in many forms throughout my life, as we all have, and I almost always find myself asking the question, “What could I have done differently?” It’s like the loss could have been prevented if I, little old me, had done something differently. Experiencing loss is difficult enough and there is no right way to do it, so please treat yourself with the respect you deserve throughout the grieving process and don’t place blame on yourself. And by all means give yourself those days where you don’t change out of your pajamas, you ugly cry until there are no more tears and you eat a tub of cookie dough ice cream, just don’t make it your everyday.
Change is not as scary as we think. Change is constant.
Not all of us realize it, but we are always smack dab in the middle of our last step and our next step. We’ve been conquering change our entire lives, but some change cuts deeper. Give yourself credit where credits due. When life brings you to your knees just remember you’ve been here before, dealing with change that is, and you’ve always come out on the other side.
Move through pain.
I’m sorry, but there is no other way. Not around it, not by wrapping it up in a box and dealing with it later, not by forcing it down within yourself, not by pushing it toward others. Find some support (there is always support), prepare for battle, dig deep and slay through the pain. Healing from pain happens in many forms on many timelines, so be kind to yourself because moving through pain is absolutely an imperfect process.
There is power in positive affirmation.
Creating, expressing, verbalizing and manifesting positive affirmations of all varieties saved my heart many times this past year. Whether it’s a one word mantra or a lengthy paragraph listing all of your goals, bring it to life. Speak it morning, noon and night. Write it down, in your journal, on a sticky note, on a paper napkin in a restaurant. Meditate on it. Most importantly believe in it…and wait for the magic to unfold.
Your mess becomes your message.
This was the lesson that was most certainly my shiniest prize from the universe after conquering the past year and a half and interestingly enough this lesson was actually re-gifted. As I slowly and messily unraveled all of the hurt and frustration and sadness I had experienced throughout 2018 and beyond, I continued to remind myself of this important lesson. Your mess becomes your message. I had heard this before from one of our amazing instructors at JRNI, Mark Rabbit. When I first heard this phrase during the course he teaches on Building Structure and Leadership I thought, “Holy shit, that’s brilliant. It makes so much sense!” But it’s not until right now as I sit down to write this article that it truly resonates with me.
2018 and the beginning of 2019 was a complete mess for me in a lot of ways, and these words that I’m typing are the message that goes along with my mess. They’re my lessons learned through heartache that have come to fruition in a very powerful and healing way. I believe they’re meant to be shared with a wider audience. If one person receives one bit of information from this post and is inspired or empowered to find peace or resolution in their own life then my mess over this past year and a half was absolutely worth it.
Ready to start your JRNI?
Looking for a coach to help guide you through your own seasons? Book a call with Stephanie here. Interested in learning more about the life coach training program she mentions? Book a call with us at the Catalyst Coaching Intensive here.
