It's just the way I see it,...

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by all the truly amazing people in my life. I know,... It's an awful problem to have, right? I appreciate your sympathies, I really do. I mean, can you imagine being upset because you're so blessed with so many amazing people in your life that you simply didn't have enough time to spend with them of all? This is my current dilemma. LOL.

The reason I am writing about this is because as I was feeling a little disappointed this last week over my lack of time with some of the amazing people in my life, I had a moment of clarity. I thought you might enjoy reading about how I got past my bummed out feelings.

I was biking to work one day and as I passed some random dude walking the opposite direction I was traveling, my awareness shifted. My focus upon the random dude was kind of out of the corner of my eye and for a fraction of a second. I couldn't even tell you a single detail about his appearance, but all at once it occurred to me. We all come from the same place. This is my belief anyway, that all humans, well, all living things really, but we're talking about people. All people are, essentially made up of two things, their temporary physical being and their eternal spiritual being. When I passed that random dude on the street it was as if a light switch was flipped on in my brain and what I realized is that of course my life is full of amazing people because we are all amazing people. All of a sudden I felt a huge relief.

Why did I experience relief? Well, I guess because the realization that we ALL have that amazing aspect of ourselves provided space for me to appreciate each and every amazing person for the role they have in my life. Most of the time I get to experience an amazing person as my wife, my mom or my best friend and many many others, but sometimes I get to experience an amazing person as a complete stranger. Like this last week, I stumbled across a complete stranger who was simply amazing. We had a delightful exchange over a pair of cork wedge black sandals and that was only the beginning. We spoke for maybe 7 to 10 minutes, but Jonna and I shared mutual genuine feelings in the time we had together. I was telling her about this very blog and a chance encounter with her was just further confirmation of my point. I knew in that moment that I would be including her in this blog.

What my encounter with Jonna helped solidify in my mind was that I was absolutely spot on in my realization, meaning, the point to all of this is to enjoy all the amazing people in your life for the role they play, big or small. There is no pressure to spend X amount of time with any one person because we all are amazing. Enjoy them where they are and don't sweat the rest.

When you offer the best of yourself to everyone around you, they some magical way feel they have no choice, but to do the same. If they are stuck in not offering their best somehow they miraculously find themselves absent from your life. Those that aren't aware of offering the best of themselves usually get irritated with the rest of us that choose to offer the best of ourselves and they don't really wanna hang around and that doesn't hurt my feelings one bit.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="720"] I am going to get myself some of those sandals. Thank you Jonna for letting me try yours on. :)[/caption]

Can't blow my smile off

You know it's windy when you can feel your eyelashes flapping against your eyelids.

Yes! I want to go to a cat fashion show.

Be careful.

It can be dangerous navigating the precarious waters of others emotions. I find it is much easier to stick to my own emotions for several reasons. #1 - I know exactly what I am intending. #2 - I can control the way I feel. #3 - The likelihood of success is much greater. #4 - The level of predictability is much higher. It may seem like all of these reasons are pretty much the same but they are slightly different and all lead to a happier me.

Following the guidance of your emotions will lead you to your authentic self, no compass is needed. Think about it. You know when you agree to do something that just doesn't "feel" right, you feel resistance. Someone says let's go blah blah blah, what ever it is, if you're thinking of anything else you would rather be doing and you stumble or stammer to come up with an excuse, THAT is your feelings guiding you. Listen to that guidance. No one knows better than you what you like.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="720"] Yes. Cat fashion. I'm into that,...NOT.[/caption]

Hey, I've got an extra ticket, do you wanna go with me to a cat fashion show? Ummmm,... I uhhh,... need to,... ummm,... alphabetized the canned goods in my pantry.

I'm not just talking about weekend activities either. I am talking about staying in a relationship that does not serve you. I'm talking about giving others the power to negatively affect your mood. I'm talking about letting things that are out of your control take over your sense of peace. When it does not "feel" good, let it go. Whether you believe it or not you can control your thoughts and your feelings.

Your mind is a tool and you are in complete control. My advice is to use your mind to create a deliberate and mindful focus, rather than giving in to mindless incessant thoughts. I'm not going to lie, it does take practice. It is much easier to allow those thoughts to race through your mind in a never-ending stream, constantly taunting you, BUT it FEELS so much better to reel those thoughts in and focus upon what feels better. You actually begin to FEEL better, with practice. Be easy on yourself

Changing and yet, some how staying the same

I just want to be clear about this girlie side of myself that I have been exploring. I do love it. I really do, but I have to say it can be really frustrating sometimes, because at 44, it sorta' feels like I should be more practiced at styling my hair and applying make up, which by the way I don't do yet. I bought some make up and I've tried it a couple of times, but it feels very awkward. I don't wanna walk out of the house looking like a three-year old who's been playing with her mommy's make up.

So, I try, every now and again with the eye shadow and then I shake my head at myself in the mirror and remove it. I feel I am doing well to fix my hair and wear a little lipstick. Even that frustrates me sometimes, because my hair,... Ugh, my hair. It's getting longer and I just don't know what I am going to do. Honestly, on the weekend I mostly wear a ball-cap. I've been trying scarves and pins and it just gets to be too much sometimes.

I appreciate the space Keri provides for me to explore. I appreciate her support and her efforts to help me come up with solutions to my hair troubles. She's even purchased some girlie t-shirts for me. She's very sweet. I appreciate her sense of humor when I come home with a 90's hip hop hairdo. I appreciate my best friend, Shanna, helping me transform my awful 70's feathered hair style into a 90's hip hop look. I appreciate her encouraging me to get little flowers painted on my toe nails, which I wouldn't have even thought to do and resisted at first, but now I love it.

What I appreciate most is the love I have around me and the fact that I am loved just the way I am whether I decide make-up is for me or not, I am who I am and no outward appearance is going to change that little factoid.

I find it interesting that as I am writing this and listening to my iTunes on shuffle that, Just the Way You Are by Billy Joel comes on. It is so fitting that I have placed it on repeat, but I think it's important to emphasize that I didn't choose it to begin with, it just came on in a random shuffle. Every single thing happens on purpose. I totally believe it.

I just want someone that I can talk to,
I want you just the way you are.

I said, I love you, and that's forever.
This I promise from the heart.
I couldn't love you any better,
I love you just the way you are.

Thank you. Love abounds.

Let's talk about that,...

Keri and I decided we would make an agreement and we liked it so much that we decided to write it on the marker board on our fridge. The agreement we made I will share with you now, All feelings are valid.

I am absolutely loving this because, since we made this agreement, it makes it so much easier to have conversations about,... well,... everything. This agreement between us provides a safe place to discuss ANYTHING, because all feelings are valid. Doesn't that just make perfect sense? It's so simple and so profound I just have to restate it.

When there is an agreement in place between two people who all feelings are valid it creates a space of trust and safety. We know it is safe to talk about anything and we don't have to be afraid.

I believe the safety I feel in my relationship with Keri has allowed me to explore a side of myself that I had kept locked up deep inside of me for a very long time. I wrote about this in my blog entitled, Girl Water. I wondered a year ago if dipping my toe in the girl water and flirting with being more feminine was being true to myself. I mentioned that, "if it feels this good, it must be true to myself".

Well, here I am a year later still exploring this girlie side of myself and I am LOVING it. I like feeling pretty and it's not just about feeling pretty. It's more about a sense of confidence. A feeling of being true to myself. A feeling of saying what I want and being the me that I want to be. The me that is not afraid of being my whole true self. The me that doesn't really concern herself with what being my whole true self means to anyone else.

Just happy to be the me I love to be.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="720"] Aren't we cute?[/caption]

Yummy feelings of LOVE

It's difficult to put into words how much I love my 12-year-old golden retriever puppy. He is a part of me. It's like I am a poly cotton blend, except it's more like puppy human blend. His fibers and my fibers have woven themselves together to provide a very cozy feeling relationship that wraps us both up like your all time favorite blanket. You know, the blanket your grandma made for you. The one you wrapped up in every single night of your childhood and every single time you stayed home sick.

The love that was hand stitched into that blanket warmed you to health, soothed you to sleep and wrapped you in an embrace of love that you will carry with you deep in your soul no matter if that blanket still exists or not.

Why am I writing about this? Well, I gotta tell you, I sat down to my keyboard to write a blog this evening and I looked over at my wife loving on our puppy and he looked at me with the sweetest brown eyes, blinked his little blonde eyelashes at me and I felt my very being swell with yummy feelings of love. It was like the perfect mixture of warm melted butter and your favorite jelly on toast, oozing out of all my pores. For me that would be more butter than jelly and the jelly would be a very thin, barely visible, smear of strawberry, delicately and purposefully spread to cover the entire piece of toast.

Waffles is our golden's name and he will ALWAYS be with me, no matter if his physical form exists or not. His eternal spiritual being will always be with me even if he re-emerges into another physical being of another dog.

There are two reasons why I am writing about him in this manner. #1- Even though I know what I am knowing about him being with me for ever, I am also knowing that he will transition. when he does it will be before I am ready and I will be sad. #2- I managed to total my car this last week. I was not ready for my car to make that transition and yes, I did feel a flicker of sadness as I cleaned out my little silver bullet today. I said good-bye to my little car and my very first Apozitude window lettering. I sat on the curb next to my car in the auto body shop and looked up to the sky. I thanked the universe for providing me that car and for the car doing such a good job of protecting me. I am grateful for what I have.

Someone asked me later in the day if I was sad to let my car go. I said, "Yes, a little bit, but it was just a car". I would MUCH rather be sitting here cuddling with my sweet little Waffles Bear.

Spilled coffee? Perfect opportunity? YES!

Ok, so you're running late and you're in such a hurry you spill your coffee all over your lap. You rush back into the house to change and then you're running even later to work so you're speeding along and you get pulled over. You get a $150 ticket and you are pounding your fists against your steering wheel in frustration. Could one more thing go wrong? Oh yeah, you could keep this momentum up all day. However, there is a choice, and the reason I used this particular example is because this very scenario happened to me just this last week. However, my result was very different.

I was walking out to my car to go to work and someone had just sent me a text reading, "make it a great day" and I responded, "nothing can keep me from it". I put my phone in my pocket and got in my car. I had my hands full, so I held my coffee cup between my arm and my chest and when I bent over to set my purse down, I poured about 75% of my coffee into my lap. I just had to laugh and I said aloud, "Not even this", after an expletive of course.

I thought to myself this is absolutely perfect! It's the perfect opportunity to prove that nothing can keep me from making this a great day.