Authentic

I have about a dozen blog posts half written right now. Stuff about our special weekend with our guests and Bff’s from Toronto, another visit with “the little girls” at the cottage, blogs about the dangers of texting while driving and my Mindfulness course I graduated from now.

 

And I will finish them. But not today.

This week has been a long week. I have had so much work at work that it is almost unimaginable to describe. Very short sleeps and very long days both in a physical and in an emotional way.

And what I realized so much this week is how under stress-I have very much shifted. There has been an important change in me and one worth noting.

I can live in the grey zone. Finally. Fully. I did it at wok this week under a very tense situation and I did it at home this week too in another tense situation. Neither was black and white and neither will be solved anytime soon I am guessing. Both very very very stressful and both very complex and packed with ambiguity.

And I did well! Really well. But most importantly..it was not a big effort for me.

And I felt my feelings and expressed them too in the way I needed too. Not trying to please but in a way that was authentic to myself. Sadness was sadness. Anger was anger.


(I have even been able to tolerate huge families of racoons running around me in my bali bed in the yard in the evenings-and I don't really give a damn anymore. Something has shifted for certain)

I think it is mainly the mindfulness course I completed. More expensive and time consuming than any other course I have committed to outside of work and not as good as I expected in some ways-but mind blowing in other ways. All in all although I resented going a lot-I always came out richer in my soul.

The five most important things I learnt over 8 weeks are:

1-To parallel park my minivan downtown

2- To understand that suffering is always optional

3-To be much less reactive to people in tough situations. To be responsive but not reactive and not feel like I have to solve issues necessarily which often are beyond my control

4-To learn it felt good to pursue this course on my own and commit to it. It was a new stage for me in a weird kind of way.

5-Most importantly although I got a lot from the course it really made me realise that breaking my “formula” is not good for me or family. We have our routines and structure in place that work for a reason for over a decade now and not being home in last 8 weeks often 3 nights a week all together has just been too much for me. I am always running to get stuff done, running to have all of us together, running to connect etc. although the course was great never again will I be scheduling something on a regular basis like this. I had a winning formula for me and family for schedule and I stuck to it like glue for years.. and I broke it this time-and paid for it greatly. Too hectic and chaotic and not the family life I want to have  to be out so often for work or courses. I felt like I have only a limited number of family dinners and times and nothing is worth sacrificing that.

I learnt to stick to my formulas but yet I learnt to live in ambiguity too.

Which is important? Only time will tell and only the Universe knows right?

But for now after a hard week-I feel ambiguous and fully authentic.

And proud of my ability to handle both.

And in between still keep smiling. For real. And to cry for real because I should cry. It’s time for it to all come to the surface.

Happiness is within me always. I feel it so much in the grey zone. It’s in my books and my walks, in my shiny blond hair and my bright red sweater. It’s in the way I speak and laugh with my son’s first girlfriend and the way I am grateful for the little things in life like my sprained ankle feeling a lot better than it did a week ago.

Happiness for me is there in authenticity

And full authenticity will lead me to great places if I let it

I have no idea where my path is-the path is grey.

And I am happy enough with that.